Site Mobile Navigation

In Iowa, Hopes That a Clinton Can Close a Gap

DES MOINES — Iowa has never exactly been a place that feels like home for the Clintons.

Bill Clinton did not compete in the 1992 first-in-the-nation caucuses because Tom Harkin, Iowa’s veteran Democratic senator and favorite son, was running for the presidential nomination. And when Hillary Rodham Clinton sought the presidency in 2008, her campaign considered pulling out of the state. Then New York’s junior senator, she mused publicly about the “special obstacle” she faced running as a woman here, and she came in third place.

So it was understandable that at a forum here Friday to discuss electing a woman president, there was more than a touch of pleading to some of the discussion about why Mrs. Clinton should return to the state that proved so unwelcoming.

“It’s a new playing field, it’s a new ballgame, it’s apples and oranges,” said Jessica Vanden Berg, a Democratic strategist who grew up in Iowa, reaching for the right metaphor to make the case that the 2016 caucuses would be far friendlier to Mrs. Clinton.

To buttress her point, Ms. Vanden Berg noted that Emily’s List, which works to elect female Democrats who support abortion rights, had filled a small room to capacity with about 100 Iowans on a gorgeous Friday morning in the heart of vacation season, nearly two and a half years before the next caucuses.

Ostensibly they were there to support the general notion of breaking the gender barrier in presidential politics. But the repeated applause at the mention of Mrs. Clinton’s name made explicit what is implicit in Emily’s List’s “Madam President” campaign, which will next move to New Hampshire and Nevada, two other early nominating states.

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, who has already announced her support for Mrs. Clinton should she run, joined the forum and got to the point quickly.

“Look at the groundswell of interest and support: it’s pretty unusual in American politics to have this,” Ms. McCaskill, a supporter of Mr. Obama in 2008, said in an interview. “Everywhere I go, women and men are saying, Hillary Clinton is the candidate, she’s the right candidate, we want Hillary Clinton. And typically we’re all fighting with each other at this point in time.”

Photo

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, has already said she would support Hillary Rodham Clinton, should she decide to run again for president.Credit
Allison Shelley/Getty Images

That many Democratic activists and officials, especially women, are pining for Mrs. Clinton to run for president was evident here. But that was not the only notion looming over the conversation. Democrats here know that their state, which has produced proud liberals from Henry Wallace to John Culver to Mr. Harkin, has never elected a female governor, senator or member of the House. It is an ignoble distinction Iowa shares only with Mississippi, and it is something Mrs. Clinton brought up when she ran in 2008 and is undoubtedly conscious of still.

The women gathered Friday at a restored downtown arts facility were conscious of it as well. During the event, Emily’s List sent reporters an e-mail with a poll that they released to an Iowa newspaper, The Quad-City Times, showing that 96 percent of Democratic caucusgoers would consider voting for a woman.

“It’s time to stop saying that women can’t win in Iowa,” said Ms. Vanden Berg, who last year managed the high-profile Congressional campaign of Christie Vilsack and said Ms. Vilsack would have won had she run in a different Iowa district.

“We know women can win here,” added Stephanie Schriock, the president of Emily’s List. “This state is more than ready.”

The 2014 race will test that. Three women are vying for the Democratic nomination for an open Congressional seat; another Democratic woman is challenging Representative Tom Latham, a Republican; and a Republican woman is running for the Senate seat that will be left open by Mr. Harkin, who announced in January that he would retire.

“It has taken a while to get experienced women in the pipeline to run,” said Staci Appel, a stockbroker and former state senator who will challenge Mr. Latham in Iowa’s Third District, and participated in the forum here.

Other veteran Iowa Democrats attribute the lack of women elected to high office to circumstance: running in difficult years or in challenging races.

Mrs. Clinton falls into the latter category, said Patty Judge, a former state agriculture secretary and lieutenant governor.

Photo

Mrs. Clinton, with Bill Clinton, came in third in the 2008 Iowa Democratic caucuses.Credit
Larry W. Smith/European Photopress Agency

Speaking a bit more candidly than the other Clinton supporters here, Ms. Judge said, “I believe that Hillary did not have as strong a campaign here as Barack Obama.”

Iowa politics, she continued, is “about touching people,” and she said that Mrs. Clinton had learned that lesson.

“I think Hillary’s people learned a lot and think when she comes back here this time, she’s going to understand the need for that strong ground game,” Ms. Judge said.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

She also said gender challenges were not completely gone for female candidates here.

“I managed to get elected agriculture secretary, and then for eight years I would find people that would tell me, ‘I really didn’t think that was a job for a woman and I didn’t vote for you, but you’ve done O.K.,’ ” she recalled. “So it certainly is alive and well, but it’s changing.”

One former top adviser to Mrs. Clinton here in 2008, however, said it was not fair to the state to blame gender, noting that Mr. Obama fared better than Mrs. Clinton in all the caucus states because of his superior organization and more compelling message with liberal activists.

“The problems back then were not just Iowa,” said this adviser, who was not authorized to speak for Mrs. Clinton.

What is clear now is that Iowa Democrats want a second chance to win Mrs. Clinton’s affection, after rejecting her in 2008.

“There are legions of women my age who were Obama supporters whose hearts were torn in two by that decision,” said Sue Dvorsky, a former chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party and Obama supporter in the 2008 caucuses. “If in one lifetime of activism, I could support them both — wow.”

Asked what she would say to Mrs. Clinton to try to persuade her to give Iowa another try, Swati Dandekar, a Clinton supporter in 2008 and former state representative and senator now running for an open Congressional seat said: “Look at me, the American dream is still alive. If an immigrant from India who came in 1973 can say I’m running for U.S. Congress and Iowans are saying, ‘We are there for you,’ I don’t have to say any more than that.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 10, 2013, on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: In Iowa, Hopes That a Clinton Can Close a Gap. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe